VirtualAcorn - User Manual

VirtualRPC-SA User Guide

Networking and the Internet

This section covers simple networking and Internet access with VirtualRPC-SA. The networking part of VirtualRPC-SA is now installed as part of the main installer and is no longer supplied as a stand alone pack.

Turning on ShareFS if you need it at a later date is the reverse of the above.

Configuring a "real" Acorn computer

Firstly you must configure the "real" Acorn machine, you will need to set the IP Address for the network card and the subnet mask. To do this double click on !Boot, then click on the Network configuration option, then click on the Internet option. Now click on the Enable TCP/IP Protocol Suite button to make sure it is ticked. Go to the Interfaces option and ensure your network card is ticked. Provided it is ticked click on the Configure button. Click the Manually button and from here you can set the IP Address and the subnet mask.

Configuring a network card on RISC OS (Version 3.7)

In this example two machines will be connected, both will have a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. The "real" Acorn machine will have an IP address of 10.0.0.1 and the PC will be given an IP address of 10.0.0.2. having set the IP address and the subnet mask you can confirm the changes, having made all the changes RISC OS will re-boot. The real machine is now configured.

Configuring the Host PC

You now need to configure the PC. Open your Network connections settings window. If you already have a network then you may need to re-configure that network connection. If you do not have a network connection you will need to run the Network Setup Wizard to set up a network first. Select the network connection you want to configure and right click on it, go down the menu and click on Properties. The network connection properties window will open. Select the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) option by clicking on its name (don't click on the tick button to the left of the name). If you cannot see the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) option listed scroll down the list of items. Now with Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) selected click on the Properties button. Tick the Use the following IP address button and enter the IP address and subnet mask, in this example the IP address needs to be 10.0.0.2 and the subnet mask needs to be 255.255.255.0. Windows may need to restart for these changes to take effect.

Configuring the Windows PC (XP running in classic mode shown)

Checking the connection

You now need to check the connection, with both machines re-booted press F12 on the real Acorn and type PING followed by the IP address of the PC, in this example press F12 and type PING 10.0.0.2. The PC should respond and you should see a list of data packets received. If you do not or the machine appears to hang up press Escape. If this happens you now need to re-check the physical cable connection and the configuration of the two machines network cards. Assuming all is well you need to run the same test from the PC.

Go to the Start menu and click on Run now type Cmd into the Run dialogue box and a window will open showing a DOS prompt. Now trying Pinging the "real" Acorn machine, in this example you would type PING 10.0.0.1 and press return. Hopefully both computers are now connected and can communicate with each other. If you have problems at this point you should consult both the RISC OS user guide that came with your "real" machine and the on screen Windows help system, you should also physically check the network cable(s).

Setting up Access/ShareFS

You can now set up ShareFS, VirtualRPC-SA is already configured correctly, but you may need to configure your "real" machine. On the "real" machine double click on !Boot, go to the Network option and then go to the Access option, make sure the Enable Access button is ticked and click on Set, you will now have to re-boot the "real" Acorn machine. Note that if you try and re-configure VirtualRPC-SA in the same way you will get an error message, this is because VirtualRPC-SA takes all its settings from Windows.

When you have restarted the "real" machine and loaded VirtualRPC-SA you will see that they both have a Discs icon on the iconbar. Click on this icon on either machine and you will see a list of shared discs. Note that a shared disc could be a directory on a hard disc, a RAM disc or on some other media, it does not have to be a complete drive. Assuming Access is working then clicking on Discs on the "real" machine should show any shared drives on the "real" machine and a shared drive called VRPCPublic. This is the Public folder located at HostFS::HardDisc4.$.Public on VirtualRPC-SA. You can now drag and drop files between the two machines without having to worry about file types, sizes etc.

If when clicking on the Discs icon RISC OS appears to hang then switch to a Window with Alt and Enter and see if your Firewall has detected VirtualRPC-SA trying to act as a server and is confirming that this is correct.

Managing Shares

We have provided a program called !AccessSet that is stored in the Networking directory on VirtualRPC-SA. This can easily add and remove shares as well as set their access levels (protected, read only etc) using a drag and drop interface. Fore more details on using !AccessSet simply load it and click on the small !Help button on the bottom left of the window..

!AccessSet

Connecting to the Internet and WWW browsing

VirtualRPC-SA can not only connect to a local network but can also connect to the Internet. To do this VirtualRPC-SA connects via Windows, so in order for VirtualRPC-SA to be able to "see" a website the PC itself must have an internet connection. If your PC is already connected to the Internet then your browser will simply display the site as normal. If you are not currently connected to the Internet then Windows will behave in the same way as it would if a Windows program asked to "see" a website. Windows will attempt to connect to the Internet using your default connection method (ADSL, Modem etc). Depending on how your PC is setup Windows may just connect to the Internet without interrupting RISC OS, or it may pop up a connection dialogue box.

If you are running in full screen mode then you may not see the dial up connection dialogue box appear, as it will be behind the RISC OS window. If you attempt to look at a web site and the RISC OS browser seems to stall, switch VirtualRPC-SA back to a window by pressing Alt and Enter and connect to the Internet via Windows as normal (usually by typing in a password and/or username). Consult the Windows on screen help facility to see how you can arrange for your Internet connection to start automatically so that you do not have to return to Windows when using VirtualRPC-SA to browse the web.